How do you promote your music?

Reading all this, and the comments. You made an EP a month ago.. why didn't you wait until you had a full album. Now you're rushed and trying to plug this EP. You list a few methods of trying to get it out there. Submitting directly to blogs, like what, you email or message them. 2 out of 20 got back to you. Anybody getting back to you about anything, these days is pretty good. Submitting to playlist curators.. Where are these. They didn't get back to you though. Submithub.. I tried that. Supposedly can message bloggers. Didn't seem to work too well. Making music videos.. and posting them on social networking. Once again, limited to one's circle of friends. Scouring reddit music artists for networking. Probably tried plugging it but reddit is quite inactive for anything with music. Not going to get you plays, plugging anywhere on reddit.

You're wondering how to get views for this new EP. Well, lately I'm testing out, paying for ads, over at google adwords. 1 cent a click on visual display ad images. Testing out 300x250 px and sometimes shows up on youtube pages, on the right side above suggestions. Paying 1 cent a click, but clicks don't always equal youtube video views. The ratio varies.

The other day, got 18 campaigns going for all 18 videos on my channel. 1 cent a click.. Display ad, no keywords used. Not limited to english language, so worldwide. "Accelerated delivery" instead of standard. Have ad impressions set to showing to a person once per month. You don't repeatedly keep showing the ad.

It's going pretty good.. but, the ratio varies.. can be one view for every few clicks. It's not worse than a quarter. So you at least get a youtube video view, for every 4 clicks.. That'd cost you like 4 cents a view for 1 cent a click.

I'm using it to get all my 18 videos up to 1k. Then, probably the channel trailer, try to get it up to 10k views. See what that costs.. it can vary, can be half of every click is a video view. So then it'd cost you 2 cents a click. My stuff is pretty bad though and they probably shut it off right away, so not every click is a view. Sometimes had 100 views for 100 clicks.

How much would it cost to get views. Well, 1 cent a click, 1 buck is 100 clicks. 10 bucks, 1000 clicks.. 100 bucks, 10,000 clicks. Yet, if you factor in the ratio.. Let's say at worst you get 1 view for every 4 clicks. 1 cent a click, 1 buck = 100 clicks, but only get 25 views for 1 buck. 10 bucks = 1000 clicks but only 250 views, which isn't too bad.. but that's 10 bucks for 250 views. 100 bucks = 10,000 clicks but 2500 views. That's costing quite a bit. 1000 bucks = 10,000 clicks and 25k views. How much would it cost to get 100k views. 1 buck = 100 clicks but 25 views. 1 buck = 25 views. 10 bucks = 250 views. 100 bucks = 2500 views. 1000 bucks = 25,000 views. 10,000 bucks = 250,000 views. Half that.. 5000 bucks = 125,000 views.

However, on tests, sometimes would get 100 clicks and would get 50 views instead of 25 views, so cost half as much. 2000 bucks would get 100k plays. Which is pretty good.. but the ratio is less.. more like probably between a quarter and half.. so let's say 3-4000 bucks to get 100k views.

I'd check it out but got camera gear to save up for during the winter. Testing out getting some numbers up over the next few weeks though. Try to get things to 10k views. Shouldn't cost all that much. I'd like to get my channel trailer up to 100k though. Probably go at that for a bit. See what 1000 bucks gets.

Takes weeks though to gradually accumulate plays. But you can set your daily limit to whoever much, see if it gets going. Most I was able to get it going is 10 bucks a day. Like I tested out setting it to 50 bucks a day, for a few days.. and it varies how many it does. Probably can't get it going for 50 bucks a day. But was able to get it going at 10 bucks, which is 1 buck, 100 clicks.. 10 bucks, 1000 clicks. Which is oh 250 views, per day.. Had that going for a few days in a row. Just started testing this out in the past few days. Got 18 campaigns for all my videos. So that's 18 bucks a day right now to test things out. Once they get over 1k, leave it and get that trailer up to 10k for now. That's a bit though 18 bucks a day x 30.. 500 bucks a month, right. All I can afford is something like 3-400 a month. But I gotta save up for that camera..

So, that's what's going on with testing out the google adwords. Kind of neat though, sometimes the ad shows up on youtube pages, on the right side above suggestions. Tested out campaigns where it was limited to youtube.com only but limited traffic. It shows up there, just on normal worldwide campaigns not limited to youtube only. So, kind of neat.. and then have 18 ads going right now, one for each single release. Lots of ads showing. Plus they all got approved. Gotta watch that, they decline content, eh.

What else do we got here.. you're wondering about promotion. What did the other guys comment about. WATMM promotion thread. That one's ok compared to the feedback thread.

Anything on reddit though is limited traffic. Even the r / music is low plays. Any other subreddit, stuff like the r / listentothis, melting pot thread.. You don't get many plays from here. Waste of time.

How about when I tested out paying for reddit ads. That was pretty bad.. No option to pay per click, can only pay for impressions, not clicks. So get ad shown but can get no clicks. I don't understand why they'd have ads which display like this but it's a waste of money, reddit ads.

So, you're wondering how to get your music out there. A few ways.. At least you have some video. Checking out those couple tracks at your channel. What you don't want is "home movie" video quality. You could test out effects on it.

Once you have product, then you can test out getting on Vevo. I used to be on that. They changed the rules a few years later. Now you need a following. Later on I'll check out those guys again. Once I use this paying for google ad methods to increase followers. Already getting youtube subscribers from the low level google ad tests. So, imagine over years, right. Can get followers. Then test out getting back on Vevo. When you're with them, it auto-generates a channel on youtube with Vevo watermark in the videos like professional established artists.

Other promotion methods.. The other year, I tested out submitting to music video TV stations. Learnt broadcasting specifications, like closed captioning. Use whatever codecs and properties they mention. Submit, has to pass QC quality control checks, then you can release it. There's also commercial FM radio stations you can submit to with them.

So this is what I'm working on. Over the winter, saving up to get that camera gear. Gotta test out these ads first though. Might still have some gradual plays like even if it's just 1 buck a day.. that's 100 clicks. But when you have a lot of releases it adds up. But once those are at 1k, good enough. Then direct traffic to like the channel trailer.. try to get that to 100k.

/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers Thread Link - reddit.com